December 6, 2005

We plied the captured al Qaeda leader with candies, but that was after "he was slapped, grabbed, made to stand long hours in a cold cell, and finally handcuffed and strapped feet up to a water board until after 0.31 seconds he begged for mercy and began to cooperate."

43 comments:

Oops, here come those congrssessional investigations as to why these prisoners weren't allowed to be put into American type prisoners where they owned the inside, could form all type of terrorist organizations within it and be protected against government intrusions on their rights, guaranteed by the ACLU who would rather see young Americans die than deny a terrorist his Kit-Kat. Although, if we really, really need to gain information, it may be okay to do that but only for a day or two otherwise human rights groups will hold hearings.Soldiers in Iraq and around the world: We'll do all we can to protect you, seriously.

All joking aside, surely we'd want to know about techniques and practices that go further than 0.31 seconds of dunking and sugar buzz... Right?

If worse things were happening, even if we were sure 100% of the time that these were true terrorists not an innocent in the bunch, we'd want to know. Right?

Then we'd be able to judge the effectiveness of such techniques and not trust the anonymous superior intelligence at the top before we get taken down a long and seemingly never ending road with tit-for-tat retaliations.

Just how do you suggest we judge the effectiveness of these techniques? Will we get it from the NYT or AP or Newsweek?

I think it would be good if all those incarcerated were to witness the interrogations. Maybe loosen their lips before we have to waste all that water.

You ask "...we'd want to know right?" To answer your question, I don't care whether I know or not. We've hired people to get information from people who behead little school girls, some of it will be good, some not. We can't know until we've verified it, then we throw out the bad and use the good.

Really when I read comments like Mary's I wonder just how we ever won WW II. War is a bloody business and we are in a battle for our way of life. We have an enemy that has already told us that we will either submit or die. These are people who are very like Hitler and his crew in that they have already told us what they will do just as Hitler did. Just what is it worth to you to live the kind of life you are leading now. Just what are you prepared to do in the final analysis to continue to live that life. Before you try to micromanage just what is done ask yourself that question and answer it honestly.

What I am seeing from so many of these rights people is what used to be called the White Man's Burden. The common assumption was that only the white man had the integrity and knowledge and brain power to civilize the rest of the world and that if the white man was not there in complete control then the savages would win. What is happening in Iraq is that the people are starting to take up their own lives and developing a country of laws. Are you prepared to tell them that if they put panties on the heads of the terrorists who are killing them, then they are as bad as the other side? That seems to be the message that I am hearing and it makes little sense to me at all. After all at Abu Ghraib the Army had already removed the people and was preparing courts martial of the perps long before the article by Sy Hersh came out and had published the info about the incidents 4 months earlier so we are not permitting hard core torture. At the same time it seems to me to be worth it if by waterboarding a terrorist who has been cutting throats we can stop the civil war from happening. Trying to manage it from an Ivory Tower and at a distance to me is not an option. I think that you should have a little better opinion of the people you have educated and trained than that. They are out there protecting your right to say what you do.

See, recent comments make me wonder if it's best to just sit back and let all the "WWII" greatest generation fans age themselves out. And I'm usually not one to play passive.

This is not WWII. A different type of warfare. Why are some of you types so quick to label questions as not understanding of the real world? Why are you so quick to put your trusts in institutions, sometimes blindly?

Our American ancestors had a greater faith in democracy, in people. There is so much anger and hatred for the Ivory Tower, for revisionist history that you blind yourself toward other methods of finding solutions.

Use force, but wield it effectively. Have faith, but verify that it's well placed. Watch the money closely.

And if need be, sit back, wait out today's talkers and just hope they don't fuck things up too badly. Remember, it's all about the little schoolchildren.

I like these sources that are not named - it makes for good copy and sales. Tattler tales. Personally I don't give a damn if they apply hot irons to his balls. It appears that a fair number of folks simply haven't been able to fullyl register the meaning of 9/11. They want us, our children and our way of life dead. We have such complex responses to such simple intentions, don't we? When the first suitcase nuke goes off in a shipping container in one of our major harbors, all this human rights for terrorists BS will quickly fade away.

Our side is using warfare and reconstruction and targeted killings of terrorist leaders. We are developing economic, political and cultural institutions that will foster democracy. We are 'torturing' people for the purpose of getting information on terrorist plans, not for the mere fun of it. Our government will be held resonsible in every election for the results they get from these strategies.

The next time the terrorists put out their bombs shaped like little toys so that the kids can play with them and get blown up, remember what you just said. Telling the terrorists to play nice and sing Kumbaya just does not work with these people. Sitting back and waiting is not really an option. While you are waiting they are crafting more little cute devices in the shape of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck or Teletubby and Spongebob for the kids to play with.

I agree that history changes but mankind does not change that much. There are evil men and not evil men. Are you prepared to let the evil men win so you can pat yourself on the back and tell us all that you were a good little girl and ate your spinach?

Can we please stop with the "putting panties on their heads" meme? Does completely minimizing the concerns of people opposed to torture really advance the subject?

Also, since WWII gets brought up a lot, I assume you can document the times we used torture in that war? If you're claiming that we would never have won that war if today's anti-torture folks were running things, then I guess it won't be hard to point out the ways in which torture was a crucial part of the war effort.

It's also a little easier to discuss torture when you make it a given that everyone we capture is responsible for both 9-11 and beheading school girls. Since we've used things like bounty hunters and informants with agendas and scores to settle, can you conceive of the possibility that perhaps we torture some people who are in fact innocent? Or is it too bad for them that we've got terror hysteria, and it's their bad luck that they fell into our clutches?

Where do you draw the line on torture? Surely, if a military patrol captures an enemy soldier and wants to know if there's an ambush ahead, they should just go ahead and torture him. Or if the police in this country apprehend a kidnapper and need to know where his victim is, it's time for torture. After all, lives are at stake, right?

We have always trusted our leaders. Was it right to fire bomb Dresden? To use nukes on Hiroshima and Nagisaki? I don't really know or care. Maybe both acts shortened WWII. Maybe both reduced total casualties. Maybe not. But we elected leaders to make these decisions.

Indeed, I look at what is being questioned in this war, and look at what was done by our country in previous wars, and am sometimes dumbfounded. Somehow treatment our GIs get in training is worse when practiced on our enemies than nuking two enemy cities and firebombing another one.

No, I am not worried that our elected leaders will get carried away in their zeal to prosecute this war. Rather, I just have to look at Abu Ghraib to see that they will prosecute and send to jail for extended prison terms soldiers who were a lot more restrained than a lot of us would like to be with, in particular, the Islamofascist leadership.

"The next time the terrorists put out their bombs shaped like little toys so that the kids can play with them and get blown up, remember what you just said. Telling the terrorists to play nice and sing Kumbaya just does not work with these people. Sitting back and waiting is not really an option. While you are waiting they are crafting more little cute devices in the shape of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck or Teletubby and Spongebob for the kids to play with."----Deal. You tell American soldiers that, nice as they want to be, getting people back home to organize little toy and pencil drives that they can distribute and use to befriend young Iraquis really isn't as kindhearted as it seems. Suicide bombers, the bad guys, have plowed into crowds of children who surround soldiers hoping to get a trinket.

Quit using the deaths of innocent kids to try and make your political points, dick.

But that is the thing. What we are really talking about is not torture as it has traditionally been defined, but rather how it has been redefined in this context.

No one is seriously talking about doing permanent physical damage to the prisoners. No one is talking about putting them in serious jepardy of losing their lives. Rather, we are really talking about de minimis psychological pressure being recategorized as "torture".

I have often heard of one brand of interrogation during the Vietnam War being to ask one prisoner a question. If he doesn't answer, he is thrown out of the helicopter (to his certain death). The next guy asked usually answers.

I don't know if that really happened, and if it did, if it was our troops, or the ARVN, who did it. But that is not what we are talking about here.

I want assurances that that sort of thing isn't happening. Ditto with what the NV did to, for example, John McCain. Broken bones, small cages, etc.

But there is no indication that that sort of stuff is happening today. Rather, the entire debate is over stuff that would have been considered mild when I was initiating into a fraternity.

If worse things were happening, even if we were sure 100% of the time that these were true terrorists not an innocent in the bunch, we'd want to know. Right?

Then we'd be able to judge the effectiveness of such techniques and not trust the anonymous superior intelligence at the top

Is it the public's job to evaluate the effectiveness of interrogation practices? I'd suggest that to put such a burden on the public would quickly turn into a farce (it already has--I don't even know what the word "torture" means anymore), and greatly undermine any effectiveness those practices may have. We place the oversight of important secrets in the care of elected officials not because we’re blindly trusting, but because we assent that some things shouldn’t be released to the public.

Assimilating the enemy in Iraq, to the extend possible, means not thinking we have to kill all the insurgents to succeed. Psychology, recognition of cultural differences, diplomacy, other incentives including well-accounted-for financial incentives, and the effective use of force are other solutions to consider.

Making sure you think things out, being prepared for as many possible outcomes as a principle before taking action -- those are also options that might bring success down the road. Finally, you need to have the people who financially and in spirit and body support you, trust and believe in your leadership, not just in the beginning but also in the end.

Apparently, by your last post, you believe that those kids back in the states who send those school supplies and the soldiers who deliver them are at fault when the terrorists kill the kids to try to get to the soldiers.

Why not put the blame where it belongs - on the terrorists who would indiscriminately kill kids this way, regardless in many cases of whether or not American soldiers or marines were present?

Some towns and schools in the heartland here have stopped sending boxes over for distribution in that way. And I'm sure many Iraqi parents have told their kids to stay away from soldiers on the streets.

Personally I hope the interrogator got a medal - breaking a major intel source in that little time with no actual physical damage (and considering he's a terrorist, his psychological state is already screwed up, so who cares?) is a pretty notable accomplishment.

Personally I think they ought to skip the cold room and go straight to the waterboard.

And no, these aren't Americans, they aren't in America... the Constitution doesn't apply.

Nothing that isn't going on right now already. But that isn't going to help with Zarqawi and his foreign born terrorists. They aren't from Iraq, and giving them a place at the table makes no sense.

That leaves the Iraqi terrorists. As noted, they are continuing attempts to buy them, one way or another. Esp. the ones who are doing it for tribal, etc. reasons. There have been some major successes recently along this line.

But you still have a lot of Saddamite Baathists, whose goals are 1) to regain the predominent share of the Iraqi GNP that they had under Saddam, and 2) escape revenge.

There, we have two choices. We can divide the wealth of the country democratically. Or we can give the Baathists back control and the lion's share of the wealth. We chose the former. Sorry.

But note that that has nothing to do with respect for culture and religion. We can respect the heck out of both of them, while insisting that the Sunni Arabs should only get 20 percent or so of the country's oil wealth.

"the entire debate is over stuff that would have been considered mild when I was initiating into a fraternity."

Look what is going on may or may not be torture, but please don't compare it to fraternity stuff. Two reasons.

First, when you join some fraternities you, in essence, agree to be treated in a subhuman fashion. Your brothers didn't make you have sex with that sheep {or whatever they did) you consented to doing it. (One could say by being a terrorist they consented to be treated as subhuman, but I don't buy that given the U.S. previous committments not to treat people in a subhuman fashion.)

Second, some of what is going on is much worse than what goes on at fraternities. Did they "waterboard" you at the fraternity? Did you literally think they were going to kill you? If so, why in the world would you join them?

I think you are the blind one here. The primary weapon of the jihadi is violent, unthinkable in your face confrontation. Saying to them "I wish you wouldn't do that" won't appease them or make them go away. We can't hide from them and they are not going to let us turn the other cheek. They only want one thing, you converted to Islam or you as dead, and they really don't care if you convert or not. No other option is open, period.

Why don't you believe them when they say they are going to restablish the Caliphate? Why won't you believe them when they say there is nothing they won't do to accomplish their goals? Is it so that while you are being raped and beheaded, you can have the self satisfaction of saying I love you and I forgive you?

Well I don't love them and I won't forgive them, and I don't give a shit what happens to them. Regards

The next time the terrorists put out their bombs shaped like little toys so that the kids can play with them and get blown up, remember what you just said.

Can you direct me to where the terrorists have done this? I think you might be confused; the only similar thing of which I've heard are American cluster bomblets failing to explode and kids picking them up -- they look like little balls or like cans of food -- there was some confusion between bomblets and MREs droppen on Afghanistan.

Bruce Hayden, far more intelligently and honestly than Dick, wrote:

No one is seriously talking about doing permanent physical damage to the prisoners. No one is talking about putting them in serious jepardy of losing their lives. Rather, we are really talking about de minimis psychological pressure being recategorized as "torture".

For the most part, I agree with you. There is some question, however, as to the complicitcy of the chain of command in the deaths of terror suspects during interrogation. There have been a number of these. There have also been a number of suspects captured that turned out to have no relation to terrorists. This complicates matters more, I think, than some of you are willing to admit.

Waterboarding is a form of mock execution. Mock executions are prohibited, as torture, by the Geneva Convention, if I remember right. It should be illegal. The interregators who broke Abu Zubaydah, I think, should be arrested and pardoned, assuming the information they got really did save lives. Interregators who torture innocent victims should go to jail.

I support the War on Terror, and am definately not in the MoveOn/Pelosi/Sheehan camp. I think that we should stay in Iraq for as long as it takes, and I supported the invasion from before the beginning. I just don't think we should be giving up on the American Ideal in order to win. We've lost already if we do that.

"Is it so that while you are being raped and beheaded, you can have the self satisfaction of saying I love you and I forgive you?

Well I don't love them and I won't forgive them, and I don't give a shit what happens to them. Regards"

EddieP: I know, I know. I'm a woman. Supposed to frighten easily. Let you men folk take care of us and all that. Not supporting 100% blindly = wanting rapes and throat slittings. Who is talking about forgiveness -- is it my name that throws you?

I would like to see a cost effective, militarily effective accounting of what is being accomplished in my name as an American citizen.

Is the American idea of fairplay still alive? Are we lumping innocent people in with all terrorists? Can we really solve every problem by blowing away the enemy and dropping bombs, or is there more to nation-building than that?

I would like to see a cost effective, militarily effective accounting of what is being accomplished in my name as an American citizen.

I asked you in my earlier post how would we know the answer to your first question. Now you've compounded it with more obfuscation. And if you don't care about you being raped, that's ok with me, no macho man here. I'm cool with your handling it yourself.

What I'm not cool with is the beheading of innocent little school girls, and that's why I can't get excited over the fate of some jihadi. Whether they personally pulled the knife or not, they thrive on the system that promotes this behavior. F*ck 'em.

It has been commented on several times by the military bloggers as being one of the reasons they are becoming loath to give out toys to the kids anymore. They comment that the terrorists wait for the kids to come around and then set off the bombs and they also create these bombs that look like the toys the US troops used to give out to the kids. Just some more of the news that is not being told us by our MSM may they rot in ...........

I repeat, minimizing what we are doing does not advance the conversation. There is credible evidence that we have tortured at least 44 prisoners to death. That's a hell of a fraternity hazing.

bruce hayden said "What we are really talking about is not torture as it has traditionally been defined, but rather how it has been redefined in this context." Talk about gaming the rules to make your side easier to defend. Who in the world said we're redefining torture, except the people trying to defend it? You're basically saying "OK, we can discuss torture. But the first ground rule is that torture isn't really torture." How in the world did you become so well informed as to what exact methods we're using and when we draw the line?

And for those who give us this "I'm tougher than you, you just want to give them a hug" bullshit, what you're saying is just that, bullshit. Are you telling me the only two extremes are torture or giving them a hug? Where does our entire penal system fit into that equation?

And since the administration is finally slowly getting around to admitting what many of us have been saying all along, namely that the vast majority of the people we're fighting in Iraq are Iraqis and not foreigners, it's a bit of a stretch to assume that everyone we're torturing is primarily devoted to the rise of the Caliphate and converting the world by the sword. If they're engaging in terrorism then they're terrorists, but I think a lot of them mostly want us out of their country, and want to see Iraq be a Muslim state.

There's a reason we have always avoided using torture, and it has to do with the soul of this country, not necessarily the "rights" of prisoners. 9/11 was horrific, but it doesn't mean we're in more jeopardy now than when we had Japanese and German military juggernauts bent on destroying us, or the second most powerful nation in the world with thousands of nuclear missiles aimed at our major cities. The Right has become very good at playing the victim, and this is no different. The idea seems to be that previous generations have faced danger, but we're REALLY facing danger, so the old rules don't apply. Well, guess what, we'll always be facing some kind of danger. Does that mean we sell our soul?

Dick, still sounds like rumor. Fox News is never negligent about reporting stories like this, to my knowledge, so I assume it's not verified (the report on the site you posted was from two weeks ago - plenty of time for Fox or WSJ or someone to verify and report).

I guess you are one of those who assumes that the MSM gives us all the news. You really should look at what is happening in the mil blogs sometime. Big difference from what we hear from most of the media, even Fox.

I remember a posting from one of the bloggers who has since returned to the US about his experience with the bureau chief of the WaPo. He was the civil affairs officer in one of the first places where the terrorists were kicked out and the government in the process of being returned to the Iraqis. The bureau chief came out from the Green Zone to theoretically find out what was going on. He showed up and was turned over to this officer to take him around. The officer took him on a tour showing him the schools, medical center, clean water supply, playground and library that had been built by the American service personnel. He introduced him to the new Iraqi government officials who were taking over. He took him on a tour of the facility training the Iraqi police and military. He set up an interview with the commanding general who spent 2 hours with the reporter. The officer even took him to the local mosque so the reporter could interview the dissidents there and left him to interview them without the US being present. The upshot was that the bureau chief went back to Baghdad and wrote his story - the only story he wrote about the visit - which consisted solely of the interview with the dissident. Nothing was said about anything else. That is some of what is going on with the MSM. That is also why the soldiers hate even talking to most of the reporters.

Given that is it any wonder that you have not read anything of the toys as bombs from the terrorists.

When you consider that we have over 150K troops there in the country and that there are about 25K in the area close to Syria and about the same number in Baghdad, the only places with a lot of problems now, just what are the other 100K or more troops doing there and why are we not hearing anything about them? There are in the areas where there are no bombs going off so are they just sitting around goofing off or are they maybe involved in clean water supplies and medical centers and schools and playgrounds and teaching civics to the Iraqis who are trying to build a country? To read the media we would never know because these 100K are non-newsworthy apparently except to their friends and families and fellow citizens who give a damn.

Assimilating the enemy in Iraq, to the extent possible, means not thinking we have to kill all the insurgents to succeed. Psychology, recognition of cultural differences, diplomacy, other incentives including well-accounted-for financial incentives, and the effective use of force are other solutions to consider.--IMO that's what we're doing. It is a difference of opinion, not fact.

Making sure you think things out, being prepared for as many possible outcomes as a principle before taking action -- those are also options that might bring success down the road. --Generality. IMO that's been done. Yes, it has not been perfect, but what war plan ever was? So if a war lasts more than two months and kills an innocent person we should just forget it and abandon the millions we could have liberated?

Finally, you need to have the people who financially and in spirit and body support you, trust and believe in your leadership, not just in the beginning but also in the end.--Who are you talking about? The Iraqi government has asked us to stay, the people are optimistic about the future and want us to leave when the job is done.

You argue generalities and high moralism. Yes, I guess I am more cruel than you, yet more people will eventually be free because of it.

and you think that the MSM has checks and balances? dream on. think of all the wonderful stories we read. Remember when the LA Times was printing that Bremer left Iraq without saying anything at the same time as Fox was broadcasting his farewell address to the Iraqis? How about the National Guard story about Bush and the documents thereof? Remember all the quagmire stories about Iraq right up until the time they voted in a higher percent than the US did and then the next day it was all back to quagmire? Remember all the polls that had Kerry winning that were in all the papers before the votes were even counted? How about the stories quoting the president with the ellipses where they left words out and the stories where they did not even bother putting in the ellipses, they just left out the words? Whole bunches of checks and balances. And how many times have the stories been checked by the blogs and the MSM had to print corrections - sometimes they just did not print the corrections hoping that people would forget.

If you read the Michael Yon blogs where he is right there with the troops and printing what is going on right in front of him as opposed to the regular MSM who write all about how they have to set up a guard to go get their bottled water. And the stories about how there were so many attacks in Baghdad with Sadr in action that the whole city was shut down. That same day the blogger Iraq the Model went out and photographed the traffic jams on the highways and the people shopping and the kids going to school and the restaurants all full of people just sitting their chatting. Big shut down that one was. Good job of reporting, MSM.

Upshot is that I have seen so many erroneous stories from the MSM that I really do not have a whole lot of faith in them at all. Read the stories about the white phosphorus and then go to the military blogs and read how they use white phosphorus - big difference - the MSM actually thinks that if you drop WP on clothing it will not burn but if you put it on your skin it will burn continuously. Good checking and balancing there as well - and that was in a major story that was so false it was unbelievable.

Actually, there is a check and balance for much of the MSM - people here and in other institutions of the MSM who debunk the bad stories. And you gave some examples in your post. Lots of things slip by, so I generally don't trust any one source completely.

I'm not a CNNhead or anything. I don't have cable because I don't want to be inundated (technically, I don't have a TV but I get some local channels through my computer). I tend to check in daily with left, right, and middlin' newspapers and blogs so that I get different perspectives and try to find the truth. (Favorites - NYT and WSJ editorializing on the same topic on the same day.)

I've only begun to wade into military blogs, and I'm glad they're there (and thanks for some names to check out), but until I see a creditable blogger say he/she saw a stash of explosive toys, and until it's been verified by another creditable source, I'm figuring it's a rumor. I'm going to search more tonight and I will post if I find any confirmation of the story. I have no problem being proven "wrong" (though I'm not saying the story is false, just that I won't believe it till I have confirmation).

I thought it was interesting that the CENTCOM commander made a speech to the Naval War College and did not get a lot of coverage. One of the bloggers took a lot of notes from what he said and they are very interesting to read. This is from the Castle Argghhh weblog: